


and it was all orange

by blindbatalex



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: An Early Halloween Fic, Boston Bruins, Hallucinations, Happy Ending, M/M, Oh also, Space fic, Spooky, also really cheesy, but are they though?, esp at the end, idk man this is strange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 21:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21004586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: Patrice's breath gets stuck in his throat.  He doesn't have the words to describe what this- any of this is.  The being, this god, is towering over the fields, over him, now in his full awful height.  They have a beard, orange, like the rest of them and the same coarse fur covers the rest of their body.In which everything is orange, there are alien planets and sentient flowers, a mission goes horribly wrong, and the meaning of life may or may not be discovered.





	and it was all orange

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born out of a 75 hour week at work and sleep deprivation, for what it's worth.

It’s supposed to be a simple expedition -- go planetside, collect samples, come back up -- then again, it’s always the simple expeditions that go horrendously wrong. 

The planet they are on -- it has no name. It doesn’t appear on any galaxy maps; then again not many planets do this far out. 

“We should name it--Orange,” Brad says, as he cuts a flower below the stem and carefully places it in a sampling tube. The flower's petals are thick -- _flesh_ is the only word Patrice can think of, looking at them. They recoil at the touch, like skin; around them what must be thousands of flowers quiver, tilt just so, as if taking stock of- no, passing judgment on- these curious strangers. Invaders, one might say.

He catches Patrice's gaze at the end. Patrice can’t see his mouth behind the mask covering it but he knows Brad is smirking just the same, can see the laughter in his eyes -- as if his words are meant just for Patrice, a secret joke no one else has access to. They are- it's hard to put a name to what they are. Friends, certainly, one might say friends with benefits -- they have fucked more than once, usually after missions that went almost but not quite disastrously wrong, almost but not quite to blow off steam. When he smiles like that at Patrice, Patrice wishes they were _more_ sometimes. To say to hell with things like respectability and setting an example for the rest of the crew.

"Could you be more obvious if you tried?"

Patrice startles -- was he that obvious -- but then Brad gestures at the land around them with his free hand, and with relief, he realizes that Charlie was not addressing him.

"You figure we should call it _Blue_, just for the irony?"

He has a point in that- everything as far as the eye can see is orange.

Two hazy, enormous suns light up a pale orange sky. The flowers are all the same shade of neon orange -- they stretch out into the horizon and beyond. Even the trees in the distance -- they look like trees -- have an orange shade to their barks, their leaves look- almost like trees on Earth used to look in the fall, except their trunks warp and twist in unnatural shapes.

Patrice is going to say, _let's finish up and go_, because there is something about this place that leaves him with a pit in his stomach. Backes assured them there were no sentient life forms on the surface but the leaves on the trees- Patrice should say that they _rustle_, because that's what tree leaves do. But there is no wind and the motion feels- deliberate somehow. Sinister.

He doesn't get the chance though, not when David makes a strangled sound. His sampling tube clatters to the ground, his hands fly to his throat, although there is next to nothing the motion can achieve between layers of glove and protective suit.

"Can't- I can't breathe," he chokes out. His eyes are wide with panic.

"What do you mean you can't breathe?" Brad asks. Charlie hovers around him, desperate to help and useless. David sputters. His fingers dig into the fabric of the suit, scratching, fighting for survival.

They are a five minute walk away from their shuttle. There is no way they will make it there in time.

Patrice shoves Charlie out of the way until he is standing toe to toe with David. He grabs David's wrist -- not particularly gently -- and turns it until he can see the small screen. The oxygen levels inside the suit are fine which means- like he suspected, it's the mask.

It's the bloody mask. They lost their expedition suits in a fire two weeks ago, which left them with the heavy duty ones intended for deep space -- air tight but nowhere near delicate enough to be useful planetside on expeditions like this -- and these orange ones, which are mostly airtight, but if you get them caught on something, they will rip. So they improvised and came up with a second level of filtration -- an air filtration mask that reminds Patrice of WWI footage he saw as a kid, those grainy pictures of soldiers bracing themselves against gas attacks.

"Pasta."

He puts one hand on David's shoulder, shakes him lightly.

David keeps squirming. He is young -- God, he is so young. "David," Patrice says again, as calmly as he can, uses his free hand to tilt his head up so he is looking Patrice in the eye.

It works.

David stills, even as he is still trying and failing to breathe.

"On account of three," Patrice commands. It isn't a question and it is not a request. "You are going to take off your helmet."

David stares at him for a moment; his eyes are blank, expressionless with panic. Patrice has to shake him again and ask if he understands until he nods.

"Are you out of your fucking mind there is a 90% chance this air will kill him!" Brad is yelling in the periphery. 

Patrice allows himself a moment -- a single moment to look at him -- to take in the sharp curve of his nose and his hazel eyes. His Brad.

"Three."

His fingers find the emergency latch on his own helmet.

"Two."

He can hear his heart beating in his ears, loud enough to drown out all sound.

"One."

He undoes the latch with a click just as David does the same on his end with shaky hands. Patrice quickly unfastens David's mask, telling him to hold his breath, just a second longer, before unfastening his own. He takes his mask off and puts it around David's mouth and nose, fastening it securely behind David's head. 

In less than five seconds, David's helmet is back on and he is breathing. He can breathe.

When Patrice ventures to turn his head, Brad is- he is staring at Patrice. His eyes are wide, with shock and hurt. Like he can't believe what Patrice has done. Like he is waiting for someone to snap their fingers and wake them both up.

Patrice can't believe what he has done either, if he is being honest. He is holding his breath, of course he is, but he can't for five minutes and when he gives in-

Backes went on and on about the possible toxins on this planet, how little they knew of the local fauna.

He opens his mouth, and in doing so breaches the last barrier against the foreign atmosphere. 

"We need to go! Now!"

They can't afford to stand frozen on the spot like this. They need to move. David has been exposed to whatever permeates the air and-

Although-

Patrice looks around, drawing in a breath for the first time since he took off his mask and- well, maybe he was mistaken before, when he thought they were in danger.

The glass on their helmets isn't supposed to be tinted but it doesn't do justice- to- to this. Where the air looked hazy before, it is now clear- clearer than anything Patrice has seen. He can _see_ the air- not in the way one can see smoke or fog, no; the air seems to be a living thing, infinite and weightless, extending and rolling and breathing with him. Welcoming him in. It's bewildering to think he was- so afraid of breathing of all things just a moment ago.

The flowers, there are so many flowers, sing. He can hear them now. Their bodies sway to the melody, in a fluid, graceful motion. Last time Patrice heard anything like this- he was a kid on earth. His mom used to sit on his bed when he could not sleep and hummed a melody, just like this one, her voice like honey, like the sea on a summer afternoon. 

He was- must have been- twelve when he saw her last. The flowers are singing, all at once. They brush his shoulders now -- when did he fall to his knees? -- and when he looks down his hand is trembling with the beauty of the song. His fingers come back wet when he raises them to his cheek. They are singing for his mom. They are singing for him. It's the most beautiful thing Patrice has ever heard.

An orange puff of pollen bursts from a flower next to his head and swirls playfully into the air. When light starts to fade, Patrice raises his head to see what might be blocking it.

That’s when he sees them, rising ever so slowly in the horizon. First comes the black- it is not a cap -- it's a helmet, but not the type that comes with a spacesuit, no. It reminds Patrice of the NHL games they used to watch as a family when he was a kid -- a hockey helmet.

Then, coarse, orange coat of fur -- the same color as the flowers -- before their eyes emerge. They are gigantic -- looming in the horizon -- their head alone is large enough to block out one of the suns. Though, you can almost see the light behind it, as if they don't have material form, as if the concept itself does not apply to them.

The leaves of the trees rustle in the distance. The flowers are singing. It all makes sense now-- they are all parts of the same whole, the same-

Patrice's breath gets stuck in his throat. He doesn't have the words to describe what this- any of this is.

The being, this god, is towering over the fields, over him, now in his full awful height. They have a beard, orange, like the rest of them and the same coarse fur covers the rest of their body.

But their eyes.

It's their eyes Patrice finds himself getting lost in.

Their eyes are dots of black in orange iris in infinite pools of white. They aren't coordinated-- each seems to have a mind of its own but they are looking at Patrice, both of them, pinning him to the spot. 

In them- He tries to breathe again and doesn't do any better than the first time. In them, there is- there lies a truth. Something you could make out if you stared hard enough, for long enough.

In them lies a secret that will be revealed just to you, if you ask just the right way -- something to makes sense of the chaos, to take the jagged pieces of life and shows you how to put them together. 

The being- _you want to know,_ they say. Their voice scrapes, but not like chalk against a board, or gravel. All Patrice can think of is pond hockey, the way skates scrape against fresh ice. It used to be his favorite thing growing up, back when the earth was still habitable. Through the singing he can almost hear the cheers of the one NHL game they went to, his dad's voice when he smiled down at Patrice, though his eyes were sad, and said- _you would have made a fine center._

He nods past the lump in his throat. It's getting darker and darker around him. The second sun has started to set. He wants to know. Wants something that can lift this- weight on his chest, on his shoulders. All these years of doubting and wondering. Wants that thing that will make sense of it all.

_Then you will_, the being says. 

It's the last thing Patrice hears before the second sun disappears over the horizon and darkness swallows him whole.

*****

Patrice doesn't know the meaning of life when he wakes up.

He doesn't know whether David is okay, the star coordinates of their ship, hell- he doesn't even know how long he was out for.

Though, he is in a private room in the medbay which usually means he almost died. He has been in a room like this too many times to not to know that.

_Some god_, he chuckles to himself. The uncoordinated eyes and the massive orange beard are comical in retrospect where they were awe-inspiring before. He is willing to bet money the flowers had some sort of hallucinogen in them which got him and got him good. The hockey helmet on this being -- _Gritty_, he wants to call them for some reason -- should have been the giveaway if nothing else.

He has full feeling in his extremities, which is good. He is hooked up to various monitors, which is to be expected, as is the oxygen mask over his face. Though- there is this other noise, distinct from the regular beeping of the monitors which might be a cause for concern. It sounds like- a sputtering engine Patrice wants to say and that is definitely bad.

Slowly, very slowly, he turns his head towards its source. He has to close his eyes for a moment when the motion takes up a ridiculous amount of energy. 

It's Brad when he reopens them. Brad is the sputtering engine.

The idiot is stretched out in a chair that is way too small for him, his legs extending out towards the bed. His head has fallen to his chest, and he is snoring really loudly. 

He looks like shit. His hair is greasy as fuck and is falling to his forehead in strands, there are dark circles under his eyes, and he has that patchy neck beard which means he hasn't shaved in a few days. His fingers are balled into a fist in his lap, even in his sleep.

He is going to say something to wake Brad up, if he can manage to -- something like _dude, go sleep in a proper bed_, but then a memory comes back to him and stops him dead in his tracks.

Their ship came under attack one time, Brad was in one of the affected sections, and he almost died. Tuukka had shook his head and said he didn't know and Tuukka always knew how to put them back together. Over the next three days Patrice spent every moment he could steal from his duties on ship -- and even some of those -- at Brad's bedside. Holding his hand, praying -- though to whom, he didn't know -- begging him to please come back, as an intricate system of life support kept him hanging on, by the barest thread.

Then Tuukka had said one day that he would pull through. To this day, it's one of the happiest moments of Patrice's life. He had hugged Tuukka, almost to death, grinning ear to ear and his heart singing. 

There was no way he wouldn't be there when Brad woke up. God himself wouldn't be able to stop him if He tried. And then he had fallen asleep, in a chair just like this one before Brad could wake up. 

There is only so much a body can take and relief is one powerful drug -- his body was fine with being pushed to the edge but the moment he knew Brad was going to be alright it had given up.

*

Brad is snoring loud as an engine. Later, when both of them are awake, Patrice will hold Brad's hand in his own and ask quietly whether they have been really stupid all this time. They will decide that they have and make out in the medbay bed.

Later, David -- who is fine -- will sob into Patrice's shoulder with guilt he should not feel and with relief, for what Patrice has done for him. 

Later, Tuukka will explain with a frown and sharp words about the toxic pollen and how it acts as a powerful nerve agent. His anger is odd for a doctor if you don't know him, especially when listing diagnoses and prognoses. But Patrice does, so he will know it's because he was scared and can't put it to words. 

Patrice will feel overwhelmed later, by how much he is loved and how much he loves in return - enough to put his life on the line without a second thought.

In a way, he already does, looking at Brad with a smile on his lips, and tears in his eyes, Brad who is snoring like a sputtering engine in a chair that is way too small for him.

Patrice doesn't know the meaning of life -- not if you ask him anyway -- but what he knows is that he is one lucky man.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy early Halloween!! Much like Gritty feeds on chaos, I feed on comments -- if you liked the strange creature that is this fic please drop me a line below and help replenish my writing energies. I have my headcannons about this universe btw which will take very little to get me to share heheheh. (And I'm half tempted to write Brad's side in this but it's all angst)
> 
> Also I'm at @blindbatalex on tumblr and always welcoming prompts, asks and so on, if you ever wanna drop me a line there.


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